Environmental “impatients”

Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist, engineer and associate Professor at New York University in the Visual Art Department.

In 2009, Natalie gave a TED presentation on her work at an environmental health clinic she set up to treat “impatients” (rather than patients): people with environmentally-related frustrations & ills and who do not have the patience to wait for politicians to make legislative change to improve the environment.

Protocols (performance art and engineering projects) prescribed at the lab include:
– The fallout shelter for the climate crisis that forces air through a solar chimney to remove ozone (an environmental pollution at our level of the atmosphere);
– the new park, a tiny park that you can create at a no-parking zone (say, in front of a fire hydrant), designed to increase water quality by filtering water before it goes into the sewer system;
– a personal tadpole, which you can take home in a container of water you’re concerned about. With your tadpole walker, you are likely to invite questions… leading to conversation about the environment (and specifically about water quality)…

and others, all that look to reimagine our relationship with the environment. She thinks completely out of the box about how to create social change around environmental issues.

Can you think of creative ideas like these that could help people understand the crisis of climate change?